The moment we wake up to the bigger perspective, we recognize that what we call my "stuff" is simply waves in a bigger ocean; it is not who we really are. To dedicate our whole life to personal processing will be to live in a very small box indeed. In contrast, to feel deep empathy with humanity and with all sentient beings can open us to a deeper fulfillment than that gained by having all our "stuff" sorted out.Chameli Gad Ardagh (*1971) Norwegian actress, psychtherapist, women educator, author, Come closer, chapter 9, S. 147, Living Essence Foundation, 2006

Releasing method HO'OPONOPONO

In the year 2003 Joe Vitale, US American Internet hypnotic marketeer on personal improvement and one of the experts in the popular movie The Secret, lecturer and author, heard from Mark Ryan about an unusual success story of the psychologist and therapist Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len from Hawaii. He was told that

Dr. Hew Len had literally healed a whole ward of criminally insane inmates – without ever having seen anyone of them. The cure of these criminals was effected by simply studying their files, writing down their names, taking full responsibility for each one of them while exercising intense inner forgiveness work thereby rendering all his own judgments, beliefs, attitudes to the Divine petitioning it to erase the shared program with the other person. With each patient Len took a deeper look inside to address the very aspect within himself that had created the illness in the person in front of him. As he was "improving" himself, i.e. cleaning within himself, the state of the inmates and the staff did improve correspondingly.

When Vitale heard this story for the first time, he doubted it wondering:

How can a human being heal another one by healing themselves?

How does the best self-improved master heal criminally insane?

These ideas seemed utterly illogical to him. So he dismissed the message as an urban legend and forgot about it.

To take total responsibility meant for Vitale that one is responsible for what one feels, thinks and does, not for that what others might feel, think, or do. Beyond that, he thought, one cannot take charge. His attitude was in sync with that what most people incorporate. This, however, does not coincide with the bigger reality.

A year later Vitale came across Len's story again. He was told that the psychologist had applied a Hawaiian healing method called Ho'oponopono. Unfamiliar with this kind of healing and unable to forget its effect a second time he decided to find out more about it. He dialed the Hawaiian therapist's phone number. And – following an impulse – Dr. Hew Len answered the call, which he rarely does. Their first phone call on the advanced perspectives of life lasted about an hour. It turned out that Vitale had met his teacher on taking full responsibility for what is.

Dr. Len told Vitale that he was employed at Hawaii State Hospital Kaneohe for four years. The psychologists in charge at the ward with the criminally insane inmates gave up and quit on a monthly basis. Afraid of being attacked by those dangerous patients they passed through the ward the staff walked with their backs against the wall. They called in sick oftentimes or simply left. The ward was a dire location.

Corncobs

The therapist Len did not meet any of the patients one on one. He had an office where he reviewed their charts and then worked on himself. The result of which was: the patients began to heal.

Len reported, After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely.Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed, he went on. The staff began to enjoy coming to work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.

Listening to this Vitale was in awe. He burnt to ask the million dollar question: What were you doing within yourself that had those people change?

Len replied: I was simply healing the part of me that created them.

Vitale was perplexed and asked Len to explain what total responsibility for one's life means. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation. That is why everything which is in your life is your responsibility.

Being responsible for what everyone in his life says or does was a tough load to swallow for Vitale. Such a stance was far from his worldview. Yet, taking complete responsibility for one's life, concerns everything that one perceives and takes in, including terrorism, the government, the economy.All the unliked topics are in fact projections from inside oneself and therefore one's responsibility to heal. The "outside" problems are indeed "inside". To change them means to change internally.

Vitale felt this was hard to grasp, and harder to accept or to actually practice it. He found blaming others far easier than taking full responsibility.Dr. Len explained to him that in Ho'oponopono healing means loving oneself. Improving your life means to cleanse and heal your life. Curing an ill person, a criminal even, means to heal yourself.

How did Dr. Len manage to heal himself? What exactly did he do, while he studied the patients' files?

He replied: I just kept saying repeatedly

I'm sorry for that – within me.

I forgive you – within me.

I love you – within me.

Loving oneself is the essential way to grow. Improving one's inner self is improving one's world.

Source: ► Derived from Joe Vitale's blog (Mr. Fire) on his first contact with Dr. Len (HI) in MrFire.blogspot.com, 2004read by 5 million people worldwide within 3 years, also published as an excerpt in Zero Limits

Caveat: Joe Vitale's blog is an incomplete representation of the Ho'oponopono forgiveness and healing work as taught by a tradition of a master teacher and licenced teachers.

Extensively experienced as an educator in working with the developmentally disabled and the criminally mentally ill and their families, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len from Hawaii was the master teacher of the healing method Self-I-Dentity through Ho'oponopono (SITH) since 1982. He has been conducting SITH classes around the world for thirty years.

In his own words Dr. Len shares about the healing miracle at the Hawaii State Hospital Kaneohe availed through the applied SITH method. While on hold, the turn around time for the release of the mentally ill patients back into the community took from several months to several years.

Steps of forgiveness and release work – Ho'oponopono

Fault register method by David R. Hawkins

Taking 100% Responsibility – Fault register work

Bottle Palm

Write down all your faults. Write down all the faults others think you have, even if you think they’re liars.Even if they see you that way and you are not that way you take responsibility. [...]You take responsibility for it all.If you own it all, nobody has any way to attack you. If others attack you, it’s because you’re not owning something.People intuit where you have got a chink; and that's what they go for. If you are being abused by people in various ways it's because you are attracting it by something that you are not owning something about yourself. [...]Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being stupid and ugly. (Laughing)So we admit our faults, and we stop labeling them faults.We have to get over narcissistic sensitivity. [...]All negative reactions are not caused from outside; it's how we choose. [...]The way to become bulletproof is to own any negativity that you can even imagine might apply to yourself.[minute 46:07]When you are going to accept that you run into the ego the way to overcome the ego's reaction to that is to say, I'm stupid and ugly!? It doesn’t matter; God loves me anyway.

Quotes on Ho'oponopono, forgiving and shared responsibility

Quotes by Morrnah Simeona

We can appeal to Divinity who knows our personal blueprint, for healing of all thoughts and memories that are holding us back at this time. It is a matter of going beyond traditional means of accessing knowledge about ourselves. Interview with Morrnah Simeona (1913-1992) Hawaiian recognized kahuna lapaʻau (healer) hoʻoponopono teacher, Living Treasures of Hawai'i, Beyond Traditional Means: Ho'oponopono, presented by The New Times, Seattle, Washington, interviewer Deborah King, April 1989

Rainbow colors

We are the sum total of our experiences, which is to say that we are burdened by our pasts. When we experience stress or fear in our lives, if we would look carefully, we would find that the cause is actually a memory. It is the emotions which are tied to these memories which affect us now. The subconscious associates an action or person in the present with something that happened in the past. When this occurs, emotions are activated and stress is produced. Interview with Morrnah Simeona (1913-1992) Hawaiian recognized kahuna lapaʻau (healer) hoʻoponopono teacher, Living Treasures of Hawai'i, and Dr. Stan Hew Len, Beyond Traditional Means: Ho'oponopono, presented by The New Times, Seattle, Washington, interviewer Deborah King, April 1989

The main purpose of this process is to discover the Divinity within oneself. Ho'oponopono is a profound gift which allows one to develop a working relationship with the Divinity within and learn to ask that in each moment, our errors in thought, word, deed or action be cleansed. The process is essentially about freedom, complete freedom from the past. Interview with Morrnah Simeona (1913-1992) Hawaiian recognized kahuna lapaʻau (healer) hoʻoponopono teacher, Living Treasures of Hawai'i, and Dr. Stan Hew Len, Beyond Traditional Means: Ho'oponopono, presented by The New Times, Seattle, Washington, interviewer Deborah King, April 1989

Western people have great difficulty in putting the intellect behind. It is difficult for the Western mind to get a grasp of a Higher Being because in traditional Western churches, the Higher Beings are not made evident. Western man has gone to the extremes with his intellectualism it divides and keeps people separate. Man then becomes a destroyer because he manages and copes rather than letting the perpetuating force of the Divinity flow through him for right action. Interview with Morrnah Simeona (1913-1992) Hawaiian recognized kahuna lapaʻau (healer) hoʻoponopono teacher, Living Treasures of Hawai'i, and Dr. Stan Hew Len, Beyond Traditional Means: Ho'oponopono, presented by The New Times, Seattle, Washington, interviewer Deborah King, April 1989

Problems are memories replaying in the subconscious. Problems have nothing to do with anyone or anyplace or any situation. When you experience memories replaying problems, you have choice. You can stay engaged to them or you can petition Divinity to free them up through transmutation, thus restoring your mind to its original state of zero, of void […] of being memory free. When you are memory free, you are your Divine Self as Divinity created you in its exact likeness. Joe Vitale, US American Internet marketeer, lecturer, author, Zero Limits. The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More, John Wiley & Sons, 1st edition 3. August 2007

Hearing from the Oprah people who want me to go on Oprah [TV Talkshow] to talk about [the movie] The Secret. [...] I went to the pre-interview and everything. And part of my mind was thinking, "I am way beyond The Secret". [...] When I got the call saying that, "We are passing on you on the Oprah show this time around," I was relieved. (CD 1 of 6)I’m no longer playing the intention game. I’m no longer playing The Secret game, which is so ironic. And it is probably meaningful that I didn’t go on Oprah to go talk about The Secret. Because I would have been the one guy out of alignment from the rest of the group [of The Secret experts]. [...] And then the one guy that said, "You know what. The Secret that’s kind of bull. It works for a certain stage but you can go past that." And Jack Canfield would be looking at me, and Oprah would be looking at me, and James Ray would be looking at me. So it is probably very relevant that I just kept cleaning [applying Ho'oponopono] and I won’t go on for that reason. But I may go on for this reason. So that’s my answer to the 'Law of Attraction'. Joe Vitale, US American Internet marketeer, lecturer, author, Zero Limits seminar, sponsored and led by Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, Hawaiian master teacher of Self Identity through Ho'oponopono (SITH), CD 5 of 6, winter 2007

General quotes on forgiving (responsibility)

I have never encountered a difficulty that was not truly the difficulty of myself. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalytist, founder of a new school of depth psychology

I am the self consumer of my woes. John Clare (1793-1864) English poet, son of a farm labourer

Compass rose of time, Quilt

A house divided against itself cannot stand. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) assassinated 16th US President (1861-1865), statehouse for the Republican State Convention, Springfield, Illinois, 16. June 1858

Taking responsibility is not taking the blame, or assuming I am wrong. It is a willingness to respond, to be answerable to the current memory that is running. Mary Koehler, US American international Ho'oponono coordinator, Self Identity through Hooponopono, Network Ireland, April-July 2004

Ho'oponopono is the extraordinary healing system of accepting 100% responsibility for everything that is your life and asking the Divine for the power to heal and erase problems from your life and experience. Ho'oponopono is a process of forgiveness, repentance and transformation.Mabel Katz, Argentinian Ho'oponopono teacher, The Easiest Way, Your Business Inc., November 2004

Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is also in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow, he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved problems of our day. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalytist, founder of a new school of analytical depth psychology, author, R. F. C. Hull, translator, Psychology and Religion. West and East – Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 11, paragraph 140, 1938, Princeton University Press, 2nd edition January 1975

Light switch

But men may construe things after their fashion clean from the purpose of the things themselves. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, playwright, lyricist, actor

When in these sessions of gratifying silent thoughtI think of the past,I lament my failure to achieve all that I wanted,And I sorrowfully remember that I wasted the best years of my life:Then I can cry, although I am not used to crying,For dear friends now hid in death's unending night,And cry again over woes that were long since healed,And lament the loss of many things that I have seen and loved:Then can I grieve over past griefs again,And sadly repeat (to myself) my woesThe sorrowful account of griefs already grieved for [fore-bemoaned moan],Which (the account) I repay as if I had not paid before.But if I think of you while I am in this state of sadness, dear friend,All my losses are compensated for and my sorrow ends.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, playwright, lyricist, actor, paraphrased version of Sonnet 30

Woe holds at last the place of our gladness.Hear, now, this counsel for your certainness:Upon your most glad day, bear then in mindThe unknown harm and woe [memories replaying] that come behind.Geoffrey Chaucer [Father of English literature] (1343-1400) English poet of the Middle Ages, The Squire's Tale, Modern – Canterbury Tales

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher, faculty member, author

The unconscious appearance of an intention to act could not be controlled consciously. Only it's final consummation in a motor act could be consciously controlled. Benjamin Libet (1916-2007) US American physiologist, pioneering human consciousness researcher, University of California (UCSF), San Francisco, Mind time. The temporal factor in consciousness, S. ?, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 28. October 2005

Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings. Yet we know and understand relatively little of how it arises and how it functions in our conscious will to act. Benjamin Libet (1916-2007) US American physiologist, pioneering human consciousness researcher, University of California (UCSF), San Francisco, Mind time. The temporal factor in consciousness, S. 86-87, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 28. October 2005

The transformation from neuronal patterns to a subjective representation would appear to develop in a mental sphere that has emerged from that neuronal pattern. [...] My view of mental subjective function is that it is an emergent property of appropriate brain functions. The conscious mental cannot exist without the brain processes that give rise to it. However, having emerged from brain activities as a unique 'property' of that physical system, the mental can exhibit phenomena not evident in the neural brain that produced it. Benjamin Libet (1916-2007) US American physiologist, pioneering human consciousness researcher, University of California (UCSF), San Francisco, Mind time. The temporal factor in consciousness, S. 86-87, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 28. October 2005

The conscious mind, if it focuses on any part of the body or any function, can control it. But the conscious mind, being a small (40 bit/sec) processor, doesn't have the capability of controlling as many things at the same time as the subconscious mind can, operating at 40 million bits/sec. Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.brucelipton.com (*1944) US American developmental new cellular biologist, former associate professor, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, presaged the field of epigenetics [mechanism by which nurture controls nature], lecturer, bestseller author, The Power of the Mind, source and issuing date unknown

All life ebbs and flows. Everyone is born, suffers afflictions, and dies. There are happiness and sadness, catastrophe and success, increase and decrease. The stock market rises and falls. Diseases and accidents come and go. The karmic dance of life unfolds in the karmic theatre of the universe.All reactions to life are subjective.There is nothing happening that is awful, exciting, sad, good, or bad. It is pointless to hold a position that catastrophes shouldn't 'happen' or that the innocent 'didn't deserve it', or 'isn't it awful', or 'it must be somebody's fault'. With a broad view, one can remain unperturbed by either the content or the context of life. That requires giving up judgments, expectations, or 'sensitivities'. Dr. David R. Hawkins, I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 179, 2003

I want to make that clear so that you can’t complain that spiritual work has not worked for you, because it is a profound commitment. If you are doing the Course in Miracles let us say, it means you got to forgive all the time continuously, no matter what. Doesn’t mean you can make an exception here or an exception there. It means continuously, because the one or two things you hide behind is usually a stack, that is why you are hanging on to it. Dr. David R. Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Devotion: The Way to God Through the Heart, DVD 2 of 3, minute 0:34:00-0:45:00, 27. September 2002

The way to become bulletproof is to own any negativity that you can even imagine about yourself might apply to yourself. Dr. David R. Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Emotions and Sensations, Creative Life Center, CD 1 of 4, minute 46:07, Arizona, 17. April 2004

First they came...

On April 22nd, 1946 Niemöller claimed that if Germany's 14,000 pastors had stood together to shunthe Nazis in the beginning, they might all have been shot. However, their deaths might have opened the eyes of the world and saved at least 35,000,000 lives.

* * *

First they camefor the Jewsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for meand there was no one leftto speak out for me. Poem First they came... by Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) German pastor, imprisoned for eight and one-half years in a Nazi concentration camp, speech to the representatives of the Confessing Church, Frankfurt, 6. January 1946

Animated unity ring

When Hitler attacked the JewsI was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned.And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church –and there was nobody left to be concerned.Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) German pastor, address to the U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, page 31636, 14. October 1968

Whoever wants peace must want to live together with their opponents. We have to risk trusting each other. There stops the arms race.Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) German pastor